Here's my new phone background.

You can use it too if you want.

Taken just before boarding the boat that wrenched us away from our tiny paradise. 

On to Bangkok!

The Secret to a Successful Beach Vacation

Two words: food poisoning. 

Michael went a little hard on the green curry at the end of our first day in Railay so we were obliged to take it way easy the rest of the trip. 

And guess what? It was incredible.

Once he got through the GI complications (shout out to our super nice bathroom at Railay Great View), it was a deliciously relaxing and pleasant vacation. 

Here's what we learned:

1. Sunset is an event worth scheduling your day around. 

2. Monkeys are the raccoons of Thailand. 

Super cute; full of trash

3. Phranang Beach is the best of the best. If you google image Railay you'll certainly get results of Phranang. So do that because they're all better than the pictures I took. 

4. The best food is also there. These sweet little boats that come over from Ao Nang and park on the beach all day. 

The pad Thai from the second-to-last boat is literally the best I've had in Thailand or elsewhere. See below for gratuitous demonstration. We got it twice. 

5. A pleasant hotel is worth the effort/investment. Much of our time was spent oh-so-happily on our peaceful and beautiful balcony. 

6. Doing nothing is a quite something. We lived like glamour queens for three days and I wouldn't change a bit of it. 

More than once we asked each other "what do you want to do now?" And the answer always came back as "...this."

If that isn't nice, what is?

Railay: Update/Upgrade

After one night at the glamorous luxury resort (read: terror nightmare dump) called Railay Viewpoint, we've decided to move hotels.

Things we hoped to find in our next destination:

1. Soap in bathrooms

2. Sheets or blankets on bed

3. Hot water

And if we're getting really greedy, air conditioning.

Thanks to Michael for his accurate demonstration of how we slept last night. 

Yes, that blanket is also a towel. 2-in-1!

This morning we got up earlier than is reasonable for people on a beach vacation, and hiked it down to a place called Railay Great View to inquire about a room. 

After a good amount of confusion and effort (one booking, one cancelled booking, several rearranged rooms and a lot of Thai-to-charades-to-English translation), we are in a dreamscape. 

We have soap and hot(ish) water!

We have sheets AND a blanket!

And, living up to its name, we have a hilltop and ocean view balcony which we may never leave. 

Four thumbs way way up. 

Railay: So Far, So Weird

Today we headed to the beaches and decided to get experimental along the way. Our plan for this leg of the trip is "do the thing we want to do at any moment" aka no set plans and we like it that way. 

Ever bought a plane ticket at the airport same-day? Us either. So we tried that and found out flights in Thailand sell out regularly. 

Also, website purchasing closes down a few hours before the flight. So we bought one ticket real-time, and then the connection from a different airline online. Sure thing. 

This made for a wierd three-hour layover at the Bangkok domestic airport (DMK not BKK), but nothing a little airport yoga couldn't fix. 

Also we did some weird food discovery at a place called "BreadTalk" (see picture of Fire Flosss in different post). That was a tiny victory moment for me. #chocobear

Eventually we made it to Krabi. Here's the process from there:

1. Exit the airport, find the shuttle/taxi stand. Taxi was 600 baht, we took the shuttle for 150 each. 

2. Take the shuttle to Railay Pier. It's the second stop. The bus smells strange.

3. At this point we were accosted by an official-sounding woman who we now know to be a travel agent. TBD on whether this was super useful or a huge scam or just kind of annoying. It is Chinese New Year (oops) and we did show up without any plans for where we would stay. So maybe she's a tiny angel or may she ripped us off. Standby for update. 

4. Take the longboat to Railay. You can definitely skip the lady and just buy tickets at the boat. 

5. Spend a few minutes basking in the beauty of the boat ride and be glad you aren't the poor girl behind us in her high-end resort wear who clearly thought her honeymoon would go a bit differently. 

6. Check in to your somewhat upsetting hotel, take a freezing shower, immediately start sweating again, crack open the wine you bought at the grocery store which can only be described as "stingy" and head out to greet the day (and maybe find a different hotel)!

Welcome to Railay, y'all!